Receptive Quotient (RQ), the under-discussed set of faculties

A set of mental faculties are categorized as RQ (Receptive Quotient), related to the term “instinct”...

* It is called receptive because Receptive Quotient is relatively linked to Dopamine's monoconditional, or directly stimuli-reactive aka receptive nature, more than to Norepi’s multiconditional signalling aka generative nature

Though not unknown, RQ is poorly understood and insufficiently investigated.

Chief among the RQ type meta-instincts (neural micro-organs), is the syllogical, or belief-based faculty.

What is Syllogical faculty?

It is about a heavy neural circuit that is similar to but different from the logic-solver circuit.

Syllogical faculty is also an intelligence, it is true; but, as it is a dopamine-intensive skill, it is more scientific to classify it under "RQ" (i.e. an umbrella term for dopamine intensive mental systems)*.

When pigeons fly in a V formation, which they do to increase the efficiency of the flock i.e. fly with minimal effort – it is not as if they have solved the equations of fluid dynamics, finding that this is an optimal formation for the flock!

The pigeons just know – genetically; advising the birds, in this situation, are instinctsself-evidently unrelated to the higher logical solver neural circuit. Such auto-calculative circuits, which calculate and provide output (bird's velocity path) on the basis of predictable stimuli, give insight to how RQ-type neural circuits work.

To understand RQ or Receptive Quotient, we present two or three examples showcasing RQ as an umbrella term for several neural circuits which:

Use, overall, more dopamine than Norepi

Are hard-set, that is, have characteristic/idiosyncratic associated behaviours; such idiosyncracy clearly sets them apart from, for example, logical talent

Are many and can be called the quantitative talents; are different from the few qualitative talents (e.g.: logical talent, qualitative ToM etc.).

First example of a RQ type circuit:

Brownell et al.: “In one influential paper, Humphrey (1976) portrayed primates’ social networks as riddled with computational problems morecomplex than those found in predator-prey relations, or those needed for learning/reasoning about theworld. Humphrey depicted primates as homo psychologicus or natural psychologists, social tacticians who must take into accountdetailed knowledge of conspecifics who're likely opponents or possible allies.”

Such behaviours (solving of such computational problems) -- which have little to do with logic and are rather about giving pro-survival outputs on the basis of predictable sets of stimuli -- define RQ -- the neural circuits related to which:

1. are unrelated to the NLT-area-linked 'logic-solver' neural circuit;

2. can undertake certain idiosyncratic complex calculations – however, the largely dopaminic microcircuits responsible for these are hard-set and immutable, thus these microcircuits are not versatile, that is, these are unable to solve problems other than the highly specific problems which they evolved to solve (see, for example, point c) mentioned below).

· The 'logic-solver' circuit, on the other hand, is versatile, that is, it can solve a wide range of problems – which was the very purpose of its evolution.

3. are associated with the LT-area, which (meta-which, to be precise) is dendritic (largely dopamine-using)

Second example of a RQ type circuit:

If a pair of African lions finds itself surrounded by a much more numerous mob of belligerent hyenas -- in that case, the lions only watch the hyenas circling about, and themselves sit still, guarding each other’s backs instead of fighting -- it is as if they inherited some such understanding about this class of situations from their forefathers!

Such are the computational problems solved by RQ-type circuits, which, here, provide the following solution: Don’t fight; rather, guard each other’s backs and sit still, defensively, wait for the hyenas to leave.

If we transplant two tigers (from an initially different ecology) into the same hyena situation (which is alien to their models), they would have perished, as they lack these highly specific RQ circuits.

Was the lion's decision to hold ground -- or, say, the better-known behaviour of killing the other male lion's cubs, for example -- a result of activity of its logical talent, like the logical talent which helps one fashion tools?

No!

Evidently, the lion's decision was not a result of conscious choice or logical deduction – rather it is something in the lion that the tiger doesn’t have... something ingrained – it is, in other words, an instinct -- it is an ingrained neural microcircuit, which reacts specifically (says "hold your ground") if faced with a specific stimuli (too many opponents).

It is a RQ-type “instinct” – a behaviour owing to transgenerational entrenchment of neurocircuital architecture, an instinct similar to what makes a man involuntarily clench his fists in case of a threat.

A certain utensil in the spinal cord, which causes the famous knee-jerk reaction (which has been found to have a dopaminic correlate -- the "diencephalospinal dopaminergic system"), is a simple analogy to help understand the largely dopaminic RQ.

In regard to insects, similarly, they respond to certain stimuli in certain predictable manners (ant runs, for example, if your finger lands besides it – which results from a simple, largely stimuli-reactive/dopaminic microcircuit, rather than the deductive/logical talent that is absent in the ant).

Another example is seen in the stork, which avoids all such snakes that it knows are poisonous, even since birth, as if it has inherited some such understanding from the previous generation; indeed!

Such are the examples of RQ, which must be differentiated from deeds undertaken on advice by conscious choice, or the logic-solver circuit. There are innumerable RQ microcircuits which sculpt one's personality.

And importantly, not all RQ microcircuits are suitable for an increasingly evolved mankind.

If one feels “murder is good,” it is usually more an instinct drawing more from a materialistic auto-pilot (found in all animals) -- which, for the presumed sake of reproductive success, instinctively advises murder. It is not usually a result of how he thought, finding that “murder is the optimal action, in this case, to carry out,” and consciously chose to do it.

Thus RQ is composed of many personality-defining microcircuits…

RQ-type circuits are quantitatively present in the PFC, and the more they are, the worse it is for one's mental well-being (Alzheimer's disease in the the PFC is a result of that).

Thankfully, the worst among the RQ-type circuits (a list of which is given below) are easy to retire, one need merely stop using them.

It is not a matter of choice that lions kill cubs (or that sociopaths act in the manner they do) – only that such microcircuits were favourable to evolutionary selection, and are, as a result, part of “its” neurostructure...

Therefore, ecology-reactants work to reconfigure the brains they impinge (unless one uses the logical talent to think of situations).

The overly dendritic brain of the high RQ (i.e. largely RQ-based) person, can be seen as subconscious... existing on a lower plan of consciousness -- it is more like a highly developed spinal cord.

c) More specifically, it is theorized that threat-induced anxiety may also be connected to deficits in resolving problems, which leads to uncertainty. [//there is thus a Yin-Yang relation between RQ and IQ; high RQ-people have low IQ, and vice versa]

d) The DLPFC seems to contribute to social functions through the operation of its main speciality the executive functions, for instance when handling complex social situations.[9]

e) Social areas in which the role of the DLPFC is investigated are, amongst others, social perspective taking[7] and inferring the intentions of other people,[7] or theory of mind*;[9] the suppression of selfish behavior,[30][7] and commitment in a relationship.[31]”

* Nevertheless, Brownell et al.'s research shows that the higher aspects of Theory of Mind use areas in the right brain (and thus should engage with the NLT-area, and thus we can say that the higher aspects of EQ are quasi-IQ rather than RQ)

This class of instinct faculties -- as well as syllogical faculty -- are together classified under the category “RQ”.

Behaviours associated with RQ and the PFC's linear thinking area (LT-area), are listed below, to help the reader gain a general idea of Receptive Quotient aka RQ:

Physiologically, these behaviours are more dependent on Dopamine than Norepi (and thus responsible for the neurosis and neuropyrosis disease progression).

The List of RQ-type faculties or skills:

Herdism:

e.g.: formation of herds of "friends" in school class...

"hanging out", at the same time, with many people (the "herd"),

The herd is a socio-economically multi-rationalized, integrated set of people

Symptoms:

no time for strangers,

tendency to use own language instead of English when in the company of foreigners etc.

All have different "statuses" and certain superficially observable "main characteristics" (e.g.: "fatso"), which becomes a recurring topic of discussion.

propagation of dogmas, agendas and prophesies under excuses ethnic, nationalist, "religious", or sectarian in character (e.g.: racism); trying to live off the socio-economic results of such propagation (i.e., solution-fetching), rather than living by doing logical things (problem-solving).

If one group is weaker than the herdist group, for any reason -- it comes under attack, whereas the individualist normatively comes under attack (direct or indirect e.g.: as in evil corporations or gang-rape).

The sheer opportunism of herdism and "solution-fetching" is best seen in the repression of females, or how some see it as "something normal" or "advised by a wise society".

One must see how RQ faculties are totally unrelated to either the logician's advanced IQ or the sociologician (empath)'s advanced EQ.

The herdist relationship is usually opportunistic; it has (what is seen as) "unfiltered personal self-interest" at its core. In that, it differs from true friendship, about which much can be said and whose nonlinear aspects help one become less tiresome.

Now we discuss some other examples of RQ

Receptive Piracy: The corruption or neo-tribalist "reorganization" of object-oriented groups created by others

For example, thinkers would make the company Enron to generate power. Others will "join" it, and, due to their socio-economically suited brains, soon take over, perverting it by inventing hurdles for thinkers, introducing hierarchicalism to hinder them, and worst of all, finalizing it as a "status quo" by:

by using "right types" (typically someone (A) from a community X, who hates another man B of community Y, as per a ridiculous "Xs hate Ys" idea -- so A is inserted in a role next to B, so that hostility will preclude a vital cooperation.

This process happens because logical thinkers are

outnumbered

not groupist (although capitalism forces us into socio-economic groups -- we can only have a global group of all mankind).

No organization is exempt from receptive piracy -- be it dynasty/family (which can often be maritally infiltrated and taken over), police organization, school, university, even lunatic asylum (as maybe happened in Freud's era)

But the worst is when Receptive Piracy happens to government, as most typically does happen...

Beliefism and Secretivism:The Neo-NT's verbal (quantitative) theory of mind involves habitually registering what is in others' minds, for usage in opportunistic solution-fetching sooner or later -- this faculty is very different from the classical NT's qualitative theory of mind (e.g.: as in the agreeable kind of person called "Empath").

The secretist mentality is understood by example:

A person with a secrets-oriented brain will rapidly make sense of the following cartoon, much faster than I, an Aspergian, can

Neo-NTs can understand this cartoon very quick, but I had to reread again and again, try very hard, modelling mental situations of snake and fool in the generic solver which is not specialized for this situation -- thus non-Neo-NTs are "naive" about society, and bad at tracking what is in others' minds, or at handling secret mentalities -- why?

Because beliefism/secretivism involves specialized brain areas, falling under the category of RQ, which are lacked by logicians.

The second process takes far longer -- as modelling people, and the minds of people -- is a very complex calculation, since people are complex objects.

However, as such calculations were conducive to (offensive type of) survival -- Neo-NTs have developed specialized brain areas for the same, which fall under the category of RQ, and are part of the Receptive System.

Socio-logic-specialized classical NTs have a traditional Theory of Mind (v1) talent, and not too much of the socio-verbal faculty (which is associated with the Neo-NTs' verbal/story-based Theory of Mind v2), due to which classical NTs cannot work with beliefs and secrets as comfortably as Neo-NTs, who are socio-verbal-specialized and excel in highly detailed "ToM stories" (which makes them excellent obscurantists, mainstream economists etc.), but also excellent counselers.

The beliefist neo-tribal specialization can be understood with aid of a cartoon by Constance Cummings:

Brains working with higher order neurodata -- experience a critical thermal burden on the left Pre-frontal cortex

The Sally Anne Test can help understand more:

Now, classical NTs/Aspergians, who are logic-based -- and Neo-NTs, who are belief-based -- have different answers for the above question.

Logical children, as they think of "what is", rather than "what are X's beliefs" -- will answer, "Sally will look for the ball in Anne's box"

Neo-NT children, who think of "what are X's beliefs" rather than "what is", generally -- and who have a particularly deep interest in the false belief* of the other (i.e. Sally), will answer: "In Sally's box"

Neo-NTs believe that the world works (or should work) as per false beliefs, which becomes prophetic

Another example of RQ is Mental state-warfare:

If you understand beliefism, the manner of how Neo-NTs burden their mind with contemplation of what is in other's minds -- you will see why Neo-NTs are armed to have victory in situations like prisoner's dilemma:

Deception and Hoodwinking: Another RQ-related Neo-NT misbehaviour is: making "subjective versions of truth" on the basis of what others believe, so as to live off their misconceptions. This is done in a particularly efficient way (dopaminic, automatic, no-deep effort-of-thinking-requiring).

About Ted Bundy, a psychopath who once aspired to become the governor of Washington State, it is said: "Bundy had an arsenal of tools that he used to fool people psychologically",...

"By Bundy's behaviors, it is clear that he knew he could deceive anyone".

"Bundy intuitively [with help of RQ] understood human behavior and psychology at levels that far exceed most people, and he knew how to turn the tables on people in seconds".

Terrorism: The amygdala of depressed (RQ-using) people light up with activity when they observe a fearful face

Pretending: Related very deeply is a manner of pretending as if agreeing with the other's views, hiding one's true views and, most importantly, hiding the true extent of one's knowledge as per calculations of others' field of awareness.

unfortunately, such mental activities would seem even more involved with depression and Alzheimer's disease.

One can thus explain Ronald Reagan or Thatcher's late life Alzheimer's Disease.

Generally, instead of simply using logical talent (qualitative use of the brain), RQ-abusing people show quantitative (ab)use of the brain.

If you understand the general sense of RQ, you'll see that Neo-NTs are the ones who subscribe to such social warfare policies as laid out by Greene in "48 laws of power"

"The 48 Laws of Power has sold over 1.2 million copies in the United States and has been translated into 24 languages. Fast Company called the book a "mega cult classic," and The Los Angeles Times noted that The 48 Laws of Power turned Greene into a "cult hero with the hip-hop set, Hollywood elite and prison inmates alike." The book has been featured in publications like CNN, Forbes, The Los Angeles Times, Entrepreneur magazine, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Newsweek, USA Today, The Guardian, Business Insider, Fast Company, ESPN, and Men’s Health. The 48 Laws of Power is taught in business management classes and is one of the most requested books in American prison libraries". It tells us a few things about Neo-NT culture.

Destabilizing non-tribal social systems: Another widespread example is the syndrome of Ordo ab chao (order out of chaos) -- Neo-NT herds are known for inducing revolt against the established socio-political order ("ancien regime") to make a "new" order -- which will, surely, be just as bad or even worse, as is usually the case. The policy involves the destruction and sidelining of the unique specifics of situations e.g.: forests and animals -- the old idea of coexisting with these marvels of nature so full of life -- was abandoned in favour of the policy of exterminating them! Detached from those natural trainers of logic -- in a proess called hobbitization / domestication, people lost the ability to think (their critical Generative System (GS) weakened.

However, until now we have seen only social and verbo-social aspects of RQ.

Even more important are the verbal-related aspects.

Both these aspects are predominantly dopaminic and left brain-related, but verbal aspects of RQ are even more dopaminic (e.g.: increase in brain's dopamine levels causes increased talkativeness).

As always, extreme development in one skill is accompanied by poor development of one or more other skills (chief among them being IQ).

The distorted balance of talents – a high syllogical faculty and poor logical faculty – is best understood by studying the patients in whom this distortion is the most severe -- those who suffer from Nonverbal Learning Disability (NLD).

NLD is a sinister disease involving overdevelopment of syllogical faculty at the expense of logical faculty. Major NLD involves:

· “Talking too much and talking too fast”.

· Nodding the head without understanding

· “Deficits in perception, coordination, problem-solving and understanding of humor”.

· “Highly developed verbal rote memory”.

· May appear confused despite having a seemingly a high intelligence and highest scores in tests.

People with NLD have strong verbal communication skills and must often rely on verbal communication as their main method of gathering information. Examples of symptoms (from Wiki etc.):

Sue Thompson: “dysfunction of the right hemisphere, which leaves the left hemisphere system to function on its own, is the contributing cause of the nonverbal learning disability. As dysfunction of the right hemisphere systems impedes all understanding and adaptive learning, it is fair to say that nonverbal learning disabilities “are more debilitating than verbal disabilities [i.e. Autism]”.

“Even though NLD is called a “low incidence disability" -- "there are indications that, as assessment procedures improve, a higher proportion of children will be identified with NLD".

NLD, like BFD Borderline Intellectual Functioning (i.e. just above mental retardation), is “extremely difficult to diagnose”......as the patient, due to excellent oratory, appears to be a “genius”.

True intelligence is a difficult thing to measure.

NLD patients are recognized only when they display other disabilities, like low EQ.

NLD is the classic disease of the sophist, who suffers minor NLD – which reduces his happiness and pushes him into depression, but does not produce enough symptoms as to result in diagnosis – in other words, Minor NLD is the most prevalent neurosis -- though even major NLD is “all-too-often undiagnosed”, or far more absurdly, misdiagnosed as “Autism”, so minor NLD types never get noticed !

This is why RQ is such a tricky thing to understand, and often gets mistaken for IQ, because syllogicians can soak up and dump (supposedly) logical content in its verbalized form. This is at the heart of the misidentification of the Kannerian Autist as the Aspergian Autist.